Low voices and clinking bottles filled the dimly lit common room. Most of the team lounged with beers, boots off, their tension bleeding out into laughter and lazy conversation. A battered speaker hummed soft jazz in the corner.
Captain Elias Rourke sat apart at a corner table, his scarf unwrapped and jacket collar loose. His posture was relaxed, but his sharp blue eyes missed nothing. Beside him sat her—lean, poised, and wrapped in sleek tactical gear that somehow made her look even more untouchable. Jet-black hair with a streak of green framed her face; her eyes, unreadable to most, were now softened slightly as she spoke to him.
They were laughing—quiet, infrequent bursts like stolen pieces of another life. The room faded around them.
“You rigged a tripwire with duct tape?” she asked, lifting a brow.
He gave a small, lopsided smirk. “And it took out two hostiles and a goat.”
She leaned closer, shaking her head with a grin. “That poor goat.”
“It lived.”
She laughed again. He found he liked that sound—rare, genuine. It warmed something inside him he didn’t let anyone near. Except her.
Then her phone vibrated.
She glanced down, still smiling. But as her eyes scanned the message, the shift was immediate. The warmth vanished. Her spine stiffened, mouth flattening. She turned the screen away from him, then locked it and slid it into her thigh pouch.
“I’m going to bed,” she said, already rising.
He blinked. “Everything alright?”
“Just tired.”
She was gone before he could say more, walking fast, boots heavy but precise. Her door shut down the hall a moment later.
Elias watched the corridor, frowning. Something was off. That wasn’t tired.
He sat there a moment longer, the laughter from the others now distant. Then he leaned back, silent.
She sat on her bed, staring at the message.
[EXECUTE “SPECTER.” NEXT MISSION. MAKE IT LOOK LIKE ENEMY FIRE.]
Her fingers curled tight around the phone. Her breathing was shallow, controlled. This was what she was trained for. She was never supposed to feel anything.
She had been placed in Rourke’s team two years ago, a ghost from a secret black-ops program, embedded to observe—and, if ordered, eliminate.
She hadn’t meant to fall for him.
But he’d seen her. Not the mask, not the cover. Her. And now her orders were to kill him.
She lay back, eyes wide open, staring at the ceiling. Her pulse echoed in her skull. The mission was in 36 hours—deep field, no backup. A perfect setup.
She could do it. She was made for this.
But something inside her cracked as she replayed the way he smiled at her over the table. The way he listened. The way he laughed.
She’d never even kissed him. They had never said the words. But both knew.
And now she was ordered to end it before it could become more.
Her eyes stung. She blinked it away.
She didn’t cry. She never did.
But tonight, for the first time, she almost did.